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All we are saying It isn't easy to put together a 90-minute musical that includes the Civil War, the birth of computer programming, indie rock, the internal dynamics of Lord Byron's family, mathematical formulas, and writing letters back and forth about an invention that will either save the world or be a precursor to the atom bomb.

Almost blues For years you could measure the difference between the Huntington Theatre Company and the American Repertory Theater as the difference between August Wilson, the gritty and lyrical chronicler of African-American life, and Robert Wilson, the avant-garde auteur.

Art attack Fortunately, Elvis Costello's dictum that writing about music is like dancing about architecture doesn't apply to playwrights taking on the world of art, which has been the subtext for three provocative Boston-area plays recently.

Bardic fun Call it the revenge of Tom Stoppard. Considered a great contemporary playwright by most theater writers, Stoppard has been something of a punching bag to Robert Brustein, one of America's most distinguished critics.

Bosom buddies A couple of young women, Brenda Withers and Mindy Kaling (the latter born in Cambridge before graduating to the role of Kelly Kapoor in The Office ), decided to have some fun with the idea that two seemingly unformed guys — one kind of loutish — could strike show-biz paydirt so quickly.

The Rude Mechs have a nutty Method ArtsEmerson began its theatrical season by revisiting The Laramie Project , in which the Tectonic Theater Project interviewed Laramie citizens about the murder of Matthew Shepard.

The Laramie Project updates itself at the Cutler Majestic Theatre You can't accuse "The Laramie Residency" of being anything less than exhaustive in its four-and-a-half-hour series of interviews about the 1998 Matthew Shepard murder.

Where turgid self-pity meets spiteful witlessness "When am I going to stop feeling like such an asshole," asks Amanda, one of the three characters in Tender , which is getting its world premiere from Gloucester Stage (through July 25).

With Table Manners, Gloucester Stage gives Ayckbourn his due Alan Ayckbourn has been often dismissed as the British Neil Simon. He's also been hailed as a playwright of such acute insight that, if you look beyond the laughs, he deserves to be mentioned in the same critical breath as Harold Pinter.

John Banville's playful universe Admit it, fellow scribblers. You'd sell your soul to come up with an opening sentence like "Of the things we fashioned for them that they may be comforted, dawn is the one that works."

Fugard at New Rep, plus Spalding Gray , Conor McDermottroe, and The Random Caruso There are some playwrights whose work makes you think that a night at the theater is going to be an eat-your-vegetables affair, but then you see a sharp production of one of their plays and you realize the menu is meatier than you had remembered.